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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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Very meagre for a top-level comment, I know, but I felt it was worth sharing because it's peak culture war: it turns out the sole holdout in the Lindsay Clancy case was a Black man.

(For those living under a rock: Lindsay Clancy was the woman who killed her three young children, pleaded non guilty on the basis that she suffered from post partum psychosis, and the murder trial ended in a mistrial because only 1 out of 12 jury member found her guilty.)

I think this revelation will end the debate about whether the jury failed to reach the right verdict. Although ostensibly the discussion revolved around what level of proof was provided (Massachussets has an unusually low bar for insanity defenses, in that the prosecutor must prove that the defendant was capable of discerning right from wrong beyond reasonable doubt, rather than the defense proving their client was incapable at least to the level of preponderance of evidence, as is the case in most jurisdictions.)

In practice, the issue seemed to be mostly framed in terms of identity politics, along the lines of “mistrial caused by obstinate man who refused to listen to reasonable majority of mostly women”. Substitute “black man” and “white women” and this loses its cachet: suddenly it reads like a proud person of color bravely standing up against a group of Karens trying to browbeat him into submission.

She may have had reasonable doubt by the jurisdiction standards but then basically every murderer has reasonable doubt.

By my male standard every women is a little crazy but that shouldn’t mean you get to kill people.

One time I did mushrooms. I had taken the same brand a time before and got very little effect. This time I did twice that dose and it put me in another reality. I eventually assumed I had dead and was in purgatory. Everyone around me I thought was demons. Suppose I got a knife and started stabbing my friends who I thought were demons. Should I go free?

I kind of think for society it’s best I’m executed. We can’t just let people murder even if it’s a mental illness and they didn’t know what they were doing. You still need to have that standard.

I think this revelation will end the debate about whether the jury failed to reach the right verdict.

I wish I had your faith. I think the self-interest and entitlement of liberal women will mean they don't budge an inch. Middle class white women continue to be the main beneficiaries of DEI despite other groups being ostensibly ranked above them on the oppression totem -- that is to say they're higher ranked only on paper.

Liberal White Women have always folded to the rest of the Progressive Stack, including Black Men. The only cohorts they're able to put up a fight against is White and/or Asian Men.

Why the difference with Asian Men? Are they counted as Whites?

Do you think white women get a bigger boost than blacks in affirmative action? Look at test scores at elite institutions and who is getting the biggest bump and disabuse yourself of this obviously incorrect leftist talking point. There would be almost 0 black men there without AA and DEI.

I think the self-interest and entitlement of liberal women will mean they don't budge an inch.

I do agree with this. Blacks who are seen as on the side of the enemy, black conservatives being the most famous case, do not get treated nicely.

Middle class white women continue to be the main beneficiaries of DEI despite other groups being ostensibly ranked above them on the oppression totem

What do you mean by this? What the numbers I’ve seen, affirmative action boosts white women individually less than other groups, like black women. Is it a case where, in aggregate, white women benefit the most or their cultural preferences are the most dominant?

What do you mean by this?

On aggregate, just by sheer numbers, and also I think iirc they attain the highest level roles from it? It's a vague memory of something I read years ago. I didn't file it away for later.

I was considering a post on the jury subject, but you beat me to it. I was going to focus on the comments some of the jurors have made in interviews:

“Roni Carlson, a retired fifth-grade teacher, was the jury foreperson…said she'll attend the retrial if there is one, to support Clancy.”

“Juror Kellie Farina…said the holdout juror ‘had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.’”

“I started filling out forms, I was so excited.”

I can’t find the exact comment, but one of them said that he would not take into account their wisdom from being nurses in teachers. Other jurors have said they felt intimidated and changed from guilty to not guilty.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/09/10/lindsay-clancy-jurors-reasonable-doubt-mistrial/91675679007/

https://nypost.com/2026/09/08/us-news/lindsay-clancy-jury-was-ready-to-find-her-not-guilty-of-murder-until-one-man-refused-to-agree-jurors-reveal-i-was-so-excited/

I mean. This is crazy, right? Do they know how this makes them sound?

Other jurors have said they felt intimidated and changed from guilty to not guilty.

Based on my recent jury experience, you need to account that ~50% of the jury just wants to GTFO and will happily agree with whatever the biggest plurality of outspoken jurors want.

And sometimes it's ten times worse!

And wretches hang, that jurymen may dine!

Do they know how this makes them sound?

Yes? No?

I think they are doing what they believe will confer the most status on them in the in-group and uttering words that enrage the outgroup or befuddle normies is an added bonus in that case.

But its crazy how this has been a series of recursively nesting scissor statements from the jump.

Likewise, its the apotheosis of the Progressive project: women exercising civic authority to serve on a jury, fully autonomous agents able to exercise their own will over others... completely swayed by the argument that women's emotional and mental instability renders them immune from accountability and punishment, and yet having their goals thwarted by a black guy, where the black guy is actually in favor of 'lynching' the white woman, for reasons thus far known only to him.

And history's Supervillain, the Old White Male Attorney suddenly cast as the feminist icon in the drama. The innocent woman saved by the very type of person who used to be her worst oppressor. A hero.

Except, not so much. Love the timing on this drop.

The Simulation masters have a twisted sense of humor, but its A+ writing. Expectations subverted at every turn.

My understanding, admittedly second-hand, is that more than one of the female jurors have admitted on camera to arguing their position based on their own "expert opinion", ie based on evidence that was not actually admitted in the trial proper, and that this is in fact serious misconduct. Can anyone else shed more light on this aspect?

It is most likely not misconduct at all, and certainly not serious misconduct. The jury instructions include, "when deciding whether to believe a witness and how much importance to give a witness's testimony, you must look at all the evidence, drawing on your own common sense and experience of life." If someone is a nurse, and they think that gives them special insight as to which side's psychiatric expert to trust, that's fair game.

This is true but it does not allow you to interpret toxicology reports which some claim they did.

This is true but it does not allow you to interpret toxicology reports which some claim they did.

If the toxicology reports are in evidence, any consideration a juror makes of them is "interpretation". It would only be misconduct if they got the toxicology reports from outside the courtroom.

The one that got me, was the male juror who thought wrapping one of the bands around a water bottle was beyond the pale, when the move seems clearly intemded to remind the othet 11 jurors that it was wrapped around the three children's necks.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/16981196/lindsay-clancy-holdout-juror-mimicked-strangling-kids-exericse-band/

I think this revelation will end the debate about whether the jury failed to reach the right verdict.

I live under a rock. How/why? I have no idea what you are trying to say.

There has been a lot of character assassination of the holdout juror.

The assumption from the media and progressives is that the holdout must have been a MAGA and manosphere white dude. The fact that it’s a black man, and he was hectored by white people, means they’ll drop it because it looks bad and doesn’t fit their narrative.

If every contentious jury trial had a obstinant black man on it that refused to obey instructions and just voted on their moral intuitions, the outcomes of these trials would be a lot more right wing. So as long as the trial doesn't directly involve a black defendent, you can guess that the jury will hang. Arguably the prosecution made an error of letting three nurses into the jury pool, but the defense foolishly made the assumption that a black man would be the same as the other white men on the jury.

The progressive media was gearing up for a witch hunt on the holdout, but that isn't going to go anywhere now.